Rumour has It
by Authorweiss
Summary: Rumour, a rare breed of cat known as an Underish Blue, is deffinitely not amused with this... war that the humans seem intent on.  Nor is she sure what the Cheshire Cat's view is on it.  Semi-folows the storyline.


**Hello**, my fuddle-headed human reader. It's very unlikely that you know me, unless you are so blessed(or cursed, depending on whose opinion you decide to listen to) to live in Underland, so I shall introduce myself. My name is Rumour. I am a cat, an Underish Blue to be precise. In Underland– pardon? You must speak up, I won't pay attention if you don't make what you have to say sound important.

A... "Russian Blue" you say? No, no, I definitely meant _Underish_ Blue. What on earth is "Russian" supposed to mean anyway?

As I was _saying_... In Underland, I am famous for being the Enigmatic Shadow Cat. I have the uncanny ability to literally sink into the shadows, and so long as I have a reason not to be, I cannot be caught. You humans might compare my _Shadow Slinking_ ability to the Cheshire Cat(who seems to be much more well known among you Overlanders, for some unexplainable reason)'s _Evaporation_ talents. I find this to be quite an insult; my abilities are so much more _catty_; I mean really– what sort of cat _evaporates_?

Well, I suppose you might want to know my story, and even if you don't I'll tell you anyway. It's not that I'm arrogant or self-centered(although I _am_ a bit of a glutton for attention, I'll admit), I just have nothing better to do, and it seems as if you are perfectly content to sit there and listen if it will get you out of standing up, so I suppose that it is mutually beneficial.

Well, you see, the war between the White Queen, Mirana of Mamoreal, and her sister Iracebeth of Crims, more commonly known as the Red Queen, had been going on for quite some time...

**Rumour** yawned as she laid sprawled out and at ease in a warm, sunny patch in the gardens of Mamoreal. Her fur was a sleek blue, almost black colour that glimmered in the light. The vibrant grass swayed in a slight breeze, and the leaves on the trees danced to a beat that only they could keep. Somewhere in another part of the garden, flowers were singing. Rumour paid this no attention; flower music seemed so _thin_ compared to some of the sensory wonders she had heard in her travels across the whole of Underland.

The sound of the courtiers footfalls– unbearably loud, in Rumours opinion– came gradually closer, and the Underish Blue could make out, faintly, Mirana's light and graceful footsteps amongst them. The cat sighed slightly, and stood to make her way towards the garden path they were following(another silly idea humans had; paths had absolutely _no_ sense of direction at all, always wandering in pointless directions and never ending at anything of true interest), leaving behind her lovely warm patch which she would never be able to find again later. Regretful, but when the White Queen came looking for you it was usually something important and it was in your best interest to make finding you as easy as possible if you knew she was looking.

She took in the lovely, grassy scent of her surroundings, the sun-dappled shadows beneath the vibrant trees... the flowers... one of which sent her a rather nasty gesture that you wouldn't think possible to accomplish with a leaf.

The flowers didn't like her much.

She lazily sunk into the shadow of the hedge lining the path, not bothering with finding an opening in the foliage, and emerged on the pure white brick path on the other side. She decided that she had moved far enough and chose a suitably sun-warmed spot on the bricks to lay back down on. It seemed as if she'd just gotten comfortable, however, before she was interrupted by the Queen(and the elephant-footed courtiers)'s arrival.

"Oh," Mirana said lightly as she noticed the dark blob of fur stretched out languidly on the path, "There you are, Rumour. I need your help."

"Whatever it is, get Chesseur to do it." The cat said lazily, not raising her head or opening her eyes.

"I'm afraid he's off on his own right now, and this matter is urgent and cannot wait for his return." The queen replied.

Rumour snorted un-cattily, "In other words, that gaseous feline decides to go off on his own little tangent and I get stuck with the jobs that you would have otherwise had him do. Delightful." She didn't even have to open her eyes to know that the Queen was pursing her lips and giving her that imploring, pleading look that asked for "just this one favour". Rumour was owed four such favours from that look, and pondered upon bringing this fact up, but decided, against her better judgement, to just do the stupid errand and be done with it.

"Alright," She sighed and heaved her body up to a standing position and looked up at the Queen sternly with her livid green eyes, a silent 'you owe me... again' passing between feline and human as fluidly as water, "what is it this time, Mirana?" The Queen smiled.

"Well, dearest Rumour, I would like you to accompany Twisp to the rabbit hole, so I can be sure that he will get there safely." Rumour sighed, but nodded; it wouldn't be too strenuous, but it _would_ be tedious travelling with one who couldn't _Shadow Slink_.

"Very well, Mirana. I highly doubt I'd be able to take back my acceptance and remind you that I am owed four favours by that look of yours now that I've accepted, so I'll save myself the work." She turned away from the congregation of humans and looked around, attempting to get her bearings in the huge castle with it's overly flashy gardens and grounds– and all so _white_, too!– and asked without turning around, "Where is the white rabbit?"

"He should be waiting in the grand entrance hall. I told him not to move too far, so it should be simple work to find him." Rumour grimaced; _any_ work was considered bad in her books, but she really didn't have a choice in the matter so she slunk off to find the overly high strung creature.

**As** Mirana had promised, Rumour found the white rabbit in the grand entrance hall(which was, as expected of the white palace, extremely bright _white_) shuffling his feet and wringing his paws and glancing around nervously and being an all around antsy twat. Nivens McTwisp was one of the most tense and flighty creatures in Underland, keeping a _schedule_ and becoming quite over-the-top devastated when he was forced to deviate from that schedule by anyone but the White Queen herself. He, like most other 'sentient' animals of wonderland, wore clothes like humans, although they had to be altered slightly to fit any awkward limbs or wings or such bits. It seemed extremely idiotic to Rumour; clothes made it hard to move and do things that normally wouldn't take any conscious effort at all. If animals were meant to wear clothes, she thought, then we would have been born human. Twisp was very uptight and "proper" and just all around boring and that schedule made it all the worse. It must have taken some heavy scrambling to work going to Overland into that busy mess of times and places and errands that he kept needlessly. Rumour almost snickered at the thought.

"McTwisp," She called, giving the overstimulated rabbit a start as she melted out of the shadows on the other side of the large room. She was very easy to see, a being of almost pure black against the purity and light of the white walls and floor and... everything else. "I've been sent by the Queen to accompany you to the rabbit hole to make sure you arrive safely and in one piece." For some odd reason, the rabbit always seemed to think Rumour wanted to _eat_ him or something. Rumour would _never_ do such a thing though; Time knows rabbit-in-waistcoat would taste _horrible_!

"Ah," He said faintly, looking for all the world like he would rather be attempting to stare the Bandersnatch down snout to little wiggly pink nose. Then he cleared his throat in a very irritating fashion. "Well, I suppose since Chesseur isn't available you _would_ automatically be the next choice, considering that your abilities are quite similar to his..." The rabbit trailed off as he saw the sour look darkening his companion's face. "Ah, similar in the fact that you can avoid detection, that is." He amended.

Rumour scoffed and turned towards the grand doors(oh look, more white), "Whatever, let's just get moving. I'd like to get there before nightfall if you don't mind."

"B-_before_ nightfall?" Twisp spluttered, staring incredulously at the back of the cat's head, "but the rabbit hole is a good few _miles_ from here!"

"If you stop whining and get to walking, we'll get there in good time; there's still quite a few hours of daylight left." Rumour could tell that he was going to protest again and whipped around to shoot the rodent a baleful glare, "Don't think I enjoy this any more than you do, McTwisp; I was pulled from my relaxation just to tote your sorry carcass to the rabbit hole so you could search for Alice, and I would _very much_ rather just leave you out there by yourself and get back to my _own_ business, but I gave my word that I would help and that is one thing that is _very_ important to me. So by Time's name, I will get you there!" Twisp jumped slightly at the growling tone of her voice and scurried past her and out the door in a rush. The Underish Blue smirked slightly and stalked after the now terrified rodent.

**Rumour** snorted in frustrated amusement as she watched Twisp. He could act like a true rabbit, of this she was sure, but he seemed to be trying to make a point to her. Probably that wearing clothes was perfectly fine for travelling and that he didn't have to "lower himself to her level" in order to get around. Either that or he was attempting to assert his position as important to the Queen and therefore inedible. But there he was, acting like a human and making a complete fool of himself.

"Honestly, McTwisp, just start moving like a rabbit and not an uptight courtier and save us both the trouble and embarrassment– well, _your_ embarrassment, at least– so we can get to the rabbit hole." She drawled lazily from somewhere in the shadows to his left. Twisp was getting used to her; he didn't jump as much that time.

The white rabbit scowled, "Well excuse me, Rumour, for trying to act dignified. It's as if you don't have any pride, the way you go around as a normal cat would."

That struck a nerve. Twisp was suddenly nose-to-nose with a fuming Underish Blue. "I have pride, McTwisp, which is why I don't go gallivanting around like a human in confining clothes. I am a cat, I have _always_ been a cat, and I have pride in _that_, not the fact that I am able to talk like a human and _think_ rationally. Nothing _good_ has ever come from human thinking; this _war_ is a good example of _that_." She turned from him and continued forward. "Besides," She called back, "the Cheshire cat doesn't act like a human much either, so it isn't just me. And how could I _possibly_ act like a normal cat, Mc Twisp? As far a I know, truly _normal_ cats can't become shadows."

McTwisp just stared after her for a few moments before moving to follow her.

**The** two reached the rabbit hole without much event. The door standing in the middle of nowhere, with seemingly nothing behind it, was quite normal in such a mad place as Underland and was thus ignored for the most part. When opened, however, it revealed a little room with rich designs on the walls and floors. The entire place was saturated in rabbit Magick and it made Rumour uneasy. As soon as the door closed behind Twisp with a curt goodbye exchanged between the two, Rumour was gone, not even sparing a second glance back. Without the white rabbit with her, travel back to the castle was much faster. She trailed through the white halls toward the large kitchen slowly, taking her sweet time after moving so quickly to get back; she was an Underish Blue, not some sort of super-cat!

She entered the large room silently, moving over to Mirana's potion table and springing up onto it gracefully, mindful of the many containers and glass phials of various substances littering the surface. Mirana glanced up at her with a smile as she stirred some potion or another over the burner. "Hello Rumour, I see you're back. It wasn't too difficult, I hope?"

Rumour made a derogatory noise in the back of her throat, "The only thing difficult about it was McTwisp's refusal of normal _running_." A sneer pulled at the corner of her mouth, "Thinks he's too good to run like the rest of us, the little worm of a rodent." Mirana kept quiet, focussing on her potion and glancing up at the silently fuming Underish Blue.

"He doesn't mean to insult, you know," the queen said finally, "he just wants to represent us accordingly." Rumour sniffed disdainfully, but made no motion to interrupt her. "I have a feeling that he will soon see that sometimes the more instinctual route is better."

Rumour spotted an empty section of the table and picked her way over to it and curled up. "I hope the Bandersnatch gives him a good fright; maybe _then_ he'll see that all that haughty dressage is worthless when it comes to survival. He had better learn quick though, because he is wearing on my last nerve with all this foolishness."

"It's not nice to wish ill on your comrades, Rumour." Mirana scolded lightly. The cat rolled her eyes and scoffed and the room fell silent but for the small noises involved in potion making. Then Mirana brought up a different manner, "Speaking of the Bandersnatch, Rumour, have you been to see him lately?"

Rumour stiffened slightly and looked warily at the queen out of the corner of her eye. The queen was focussed on her potion, a faint smile on her face; it was impossible to tell if she actually knew of Rumours visits to the citadel of her sister, Iracebeth, or if she was waiting for Rumour to slip up and affirm her suspicions. It wasn't that she didn't trust the queen but... her business was her business and _no-one_ else's.

The Bandersnatch was a longtime friend and figurehead of respect to Rumour, strong and fast and fearsome, as well as intelligent and kind-hearted. She often paid visits to his prison in the Red castle to keep him up to speed with what was happening in Underland. He was appreciative of the constant updates, as well as the company of someone other than the residents of the castle; the courtiers were unintelligent pigs that hung around for the mere fact that Iracebeth supplied them with room and board so long as some part of them was abnormally large, and the card soldiers didn't talk at all. The Knave, Ilosovic Stayne, was a black-hearted bastard not even worth consideration.

Rumour chose her words carefully, "No, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him for quite a while, why?"

"Oh," Mirana said breezily, seeming perfectly fine with the whole thing, "that's a shame. I was hoping you had; he might have been a great help in this war against my sister." Rumour nodded.

"If I do run into him, I'll gladly ask," Rumour replied, standing and hopping off the table. "He _would_ be quite an asset in this pathetic mess you humans have gotten us all into," she scowled at the thought of her precious Underland in such a tumultuous situation, "although even _he_ won't be able to help much if the Jabberwock gets involved again, which is almost certain." Fixing an appraising eye on the queen, the Underish Blue left the room without another word.

**The** Red castle was quite a different sight from Mamoreal. The walls were made of a cold grey stone, forbidding and filled with a certain hopelessness that sapped one's energy and left them depressed and weak spirited. The moat was a polluted, murky green and stank to high heaven thanks to all the decapitated heads that floated around in the water, varied expressions of horror and pain on their pale, rotting faces. The bridge was drawn, and it stopped all but the card soldiers from passing. From the high turrets, flapping in the wind, hung banners bearing the coat of arms of Iracebeth, the Red Queen. The earth around the castle was barren, only a few trees and bushes dotted the scruffy, dead grass, and no animals could be found for miles.

Rumour laid concealed beneath a scrubby bush beside the moat, waiting somewhat impatiently for night to set in and give her more adequate cover. When sneaking into a place where you're likely to be killed if caught, you take every precaution possible, no matter _how_ confident of your abilities you are. The sun, having taken its sweet time in setting in Rumour's opinion, finally fell below the horizon. The moon, barely a sliver this night, wouldn't give off much light which made Rumour's current task all the more easy. Discreetly, Rumour slunk up to the fetid waters of the moat and swiftly danced across a path of rotting heads, barely even phased by the stench and the sight of them. Stopping by the wall for a few moments to listen for any movement on the other side that might suggest a card soldier coming her way, Rumour found the crack in the outer wall that led to the gardens and her small frame slipped through easily.

The gardens in the red castle were quite gaudy, hedges trimmed in the shape of Iracebeth's head, patches of flowers in every shade of red and pink possible, and rich arches made to do nothing more than show off wealth and add a small touch of quaintness, the latter of which had sadly been lost in the design.

Rumour didn't stop to admire the sheer stupidity of such a fine example of humanity's pathetic attempts to assert itself in the world; she had somewhere to be and, if she dawdled, she would lose the protection of her indirect Magick. She slipped into the shadows as she moved into the castle hallways, mindful of any torches that might cut her off. She didn't know what would happen if the shadow she was hiding in was suddenly replaced by light, but she didn't particularly want to chance finding out. She slipped unnoticed by the soldiers in their ridiculous armour and moved towards the courtyard where the Bandersnatch was held. She passed the queens personal quarters and heard voices drifting through a crack in the door. Most likely Iracebeth and that slimy Knave of hers. Rumour sneered and continued on.

**The** Bandersnatch was kept in a sort of kennel, just large enough for him to lay down comfortably and turn around in when the door was closed. Rumour was appalled at the indignity, but the large cat was used to close quarters, so they didn't bother him anymore. The Underish Blue slipped through the small barred gap beneath the locked door and into the kennel. The Bandersnatch opened his eyes and raised his head as he heard the slight sound of her paws against the ground.

"Rumour," He greeted in his deep, gruff, rumbling voice, "It has been a while since you came to visit. It is good to see you." Of course, unlike her, he couldn't speak like humans but, being a cat herself, that wasn't really a hindrance. The Bandersnatch was a huge, grey, bear-like cat with black and darker grey markings dotting his fur in abundance. His eyes were a light amber colour and some of his teeth protruded from his lips slightly. His whip-like tail twitched behind him slightly.

"Yes, I'm very sorry I haven't been around lately; Mirana's had several errands for me to take care of in the Cheshire Cat's stead." The Bandersnatch nodded, a considering look on his face. One thing that Rumour and the Bandersnatch really didn't agree on was Chesseur's true standing in this war of the humans. Rumour was sure he was working his _own_ agenda, while the Bandersnatch insisted to her that she and the Cheshire Cat thought much the same way concerning the war.

"Well I'm sure that he'll turn up soon enough; whatever he's doing must be important."

Rumour had a feeling that when the great cat said that, he knew something about the situation that she didn't. It irked her, but if the Bandersnatch had thought she needed to know, he would have told her. So she merely scoffed and pushed the thought aside. "What other news do you bring me, Rumour?"

"Well, Milord," Rumour said, straightening and using her usual address for the king-sized cat, "I escorted the white rabbit to the rabbit hole this afternoon; he has been sent to locate Alice and bring her here to assist in the White Queen's struggle. We still don't know how long it will take, though." The Bandersnatch nodded again, and turned the conversation to lighter topics of debate concerning Underland, discarding the main topic easily.

Rumour heard footsteps crunching on the gravel of the courtyard and stiffened as they approached the kennel. She stood quickly and rushed to the shadows in the corners of the kennel and slipped into them, relaxing only when she felt their comforting embrace. The door swung open a few moments later and in stepped the figure of Ilosovic Stayne, the Knave of Hearts. Rumour felt her heart stop for a moment; a second later and she would have been caught. That had been way too close for comfort.

Rumour slipped soundlessly into Stayne's shadow as it melded with the dark corner she had concealed herself in. As he left again, she broke off from his shadow and slipped away into the night, unsettled by her close call.

Well, I do believe that is enough of you hearing about me for now; you seem to be getting bored of me. So off you go and let me get back to my nap. Go... do whatever it was you were supposed to do before you decided to kill Time here.

...

**And please, review and make the author happy. She gets rather annoying, always checking for new reviews and looking all hopeful only to deflate when she doesn't find any. . .**

**It's not that I care that she's sad or anything, but she's just so **_**annoying**_** about it. . . Ahem. . . So just review so I won't have to deal with that, thank you. The little button's just down there, you humans make so many needless motions that one more of actual worth shouldn't bother you**_** too**_** much. . .**


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